Reassessing U.S. Lend-Lease Aid to the Soviet Union: Episodes of Tension and Structures for the Coming Cold War

• In Event: Reassessing and Remembering Soviet Diplomacy during the Cold War

Abstract

My paper examines the Lend-Lease negotiations between the US and USSR toward the end of WWII and in the tense months and years afterward. While the contentious end of Lend-Lease aid may not have been a major cause of the Cold War on its own, zooming in on discrete episodes from the lengthy negotiations and various arenas of implementation illuminates how American and Soviet diplomats and business representatives thought of and acted toward each other as communication and cooperation broke down and the Cold War began to take shape.

Author

• Keegan Lundman, U of Kansas